July 04, 2012

It's true! The Mountains of Instead now contain more than just I, the erstwhile lone reviewer on these here hills. As The Mountains of Instead are largely made up of mountains of books, under which your studious Splendibird was being buried, a number of others have decided to climb up and lend a hand. This not only allows you to meet some rather excellent new reviewers, it also allows me to breathe after a series of TBR pile-induced panic attacks.

As well as having extra eyes on the books coming in to MOI for review, this also signifies a shift in the type of blog I want to run here. While we will continue to review largely YA titles, you'll also see some adult titles and some classics creeping in here and there. This has been on the cards for a while but one person can only read so many books so my able colleagues will be helping to add variety to what you find here. Our tastes are in the realm of same-same-but-different as are our writing styles and we hope you are going to enjoy the mix. Ultimately, this whole revamp will lead to a surely glorious blog redesign - anyone with any designer recommendations please step this way (especially designers who design stuff for FREE).

Anyhoo, over the next few weeks you'll start to see reviews pop up from all involved (all reviews will have a lovely little pic at the end to tell you who you're reading) so without further ado, let me introduce you to the all new (nearly) team scaling the heady peaks of The Mountains of Instead (I swear, that is the end of any climbing/hill/mountain metaphor):

Splendibird

Most of you know Splendibird already, but for those who don't, she's based in the North of Scotland where she spends her days freelancing in editor-y stuff (yes, that's a word), working in her local library and raising a small demon. Er, that is, delight. At the moment she also spends a lot of time attending weddings and would like to politely request that people stop getting married for a while. K?

Cannonball Jones

Cannonball, also known as Paul, is an itinerant Scotsman trying to communicate the joys and intricacies of his neighbours' native tongue at an anonymous cram school in Taiwan. Unfortunately this is in reality more akin to babysitting than to anything resembling actual education and thus he seeks refuge in literature whenever possible to escape the horrors of his current career. His hobbies include curmudgeonly mumbling, telling pesky kids to get the hell off his lawn, boring people with his incessant ravings about the songwriting genius of Greg Dulli and trying to convince people that owning a film camera doesn't make him a hipster.

Polka Dot Steph

Lovely Steph is currently in the employ of The Man, while living in the beauteous Edinburgh. Like Splendibird, she is a Lady YAcker and she reads anything and everything often writing about it very beautifully. Married to a swanky fellow, she has yet to allow married grownupness (also a word) stifle her inner YA and will largely be helping Splendibird with the terrifying TBR pile. As well as a voracious reader, Steph also enjoys the glory of musical theatre so you should absolutely expect a sing-a-long blog post at some point in the near future.

SwishFish

Erstwhile school chum of Splendibird (and it's all very erst, these days) Swish hides his position as one of the leading photographers in the world by masquerading as a geologist called Justin. He'll be dropping in from time to time to educate us all on the joys of the classics (and whatever else he fancies reading that month). Until then you can find him ALL OVER THE INTERNETS. Well, mainly here.

There you have it - welcome to the all new show and please be lovely and drop in to show support as the all new team start to appear on these old slopes (er, sorry, I can't help myself).